December 2021 MSNBC op-ed by Truth leader argues that nurses need assistants
1,588 total views
Tag: Covid-19
Bottomless wells
Reports show Covid is overwhelming school nurses nationwide
As students are back at schools across the U.S., school nurses are confronting real challenges. Most obviously, they face a huge expansion of their already excessive workloads, as explained in a September 2021 piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer. But as the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported on the same day, some school nurses – like the one in Cheyenne who resigned over lax quarantine rules – also face bad Covid policies.
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Wishful acting
The May 2021 piece had some strong advocacy from National Nurses United, which argues that it’s too soon to tell vaccinated people they can stop wearing masks in most U.S. settings. Sadly, the article includes more about how the new guidance is playing out in California politics than it does about whether NNU is actually right.
895 total views
Running the show
New York Times opinion items show the value of nursing—and how it is threatened In late February 2021, two nurse-related opinion pieces appeared in the Times almost at the same time. A…
167,428 total views, 1 views today
An army of traveling nurses
As 2020 ends, coverage of nursing in Covid care still depends on who is involved. A recent NBC News piece offered a good quick look at the travel nurses who are trying to cope with the current U.S. surge. In a BBC Newshour report, an NYU physician forcefully affirmed the key role skilled nurses play, especially in ICUs. Yet a long New York Times article on a shortage of “specialists” to run ventilators excluded nurses. And one governor had to defend his health commissioner, an RN, from an MSNBC anchor’s suggestion that an “upgrade” to a physician was needed.
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Essential workers
Nurse added to Biden-Harris Covid-19 task force In late November 2020, the Biden-Harris transition team added a nurse to its Covid advisory board, after campaigns by the Truth About Nursing and others….
231,222 total views, 4 views today
Task force multipliers
On November 22, 2020, the Truth About Nursing sent the Covid task force a message with a diverse list of nurses. The list included direct care nurses, as well as nurses who are expert in infection control, health disparities, and other public health disciplines. We hope our message will increase understanding of nursing. While we can’t guarantee nurses will be added to the task force, we are hopeful, and we thank you for your recommendations!
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The Truth About Nursing’s letter to the Biden-Harris Covid-19 advisory panel
November 22, 2020 Thank you for your openness to representation of nurses on the Biden-Harris coronavirus advisory panel. Nurses deliver most skilled health care and have valuable insight into what patients and…
234,108 total views
Which nurses would be the best fit for the Biden-Harris Covid-19 advisory panel?
November 12, 2020 — Thank you to the many hundreds of people who have joined our letter-writing campaign and urged President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris to add nurses to their Covid-19 task force. One of the current advisory panel members got in touch with us yesterday to let us know our concerns have been heard and they are eager to put forward our suggestions for the best nurse candidates for the panel.
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The incoming Administration’s new Covid-19 task force excludes nurses
November 11, 2020 — President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris have now announced the names of the 13 members of their new Covid-19 task force. The panel is mostly physicians and includes no nurses. But nurses provide the vast majority of the skilled care that Covid-19 patients receive, and they have deep understanding of how the crisis is playing out on the ground. Nurses also have diverse public health and policy expertise, including in the fields of infection control, health disparities, and community health. Nurses know and do a great deal that physicians do not. So with nurses, the panel will be far more effective. Please join us in urging that nurses be added!
2,522 total views
Hundreds of people suffocating to death
In October 2020 CNN reported on a widely-shared TikTok video in which nurse Cristina Hops expressed outrage at a tweet by Donald Trump urging people not to “be afraid of Covid.” Hops argued that the tweet undermined the efforts of health workers to get the public to take the deadly disease seriously. That is strong patient advocacy.
3,367 total views, 1 views today
The old front line
The July 2020 issue honored those on the “new front line.” One cover featured a midwife. And inside, that nurse advocated for more NHS funding. But nurses are not the “new” front line—they have been saving lives for a long time! Yet the editor’s essay did not group them with physicians, the recognized health experts, but with workers who are not in health care at all.
2,925 total views, 3 views today
“Looking for empathy in medicine? Start with nurses”
After a June 2020 piece in the Baltimore Sun marvels at medical students providing holistic care to Covid patients, a local nurse explains that this extraordinary care innovation has actually been at the core…
187,185 total views
Hot
NY Post: Covid nurse suspended for wearing little beneath clear gown Post pieces reported that a Russian nurse had been suspended for wearing only her underwear, or maybe it was a swimsuit, under her…
184,586 total views, 2 views today
Nurses: Into the Banksy-verse
U.K. street artist’s Covid-19 tribute presents nurse as superhero A new Banksy work hangs in a hospital in southern England. It pays tribute to NHS staff by showing a boy playing with…
181,938 total views, 8 views today
Saving us from ourselves
Washington Post report on nursing in Covid era offers unusually deep look at profession A long April 2020 piece in the Post had information from a diverse group of nurses. Of course,…
124,262 total views, 2 views today
Making the hospital look bad
April 2020 pieces highlight U.S. nurses advocating for safer practices despite efforts to silence them. Buzzfeed reported that a California hospital had suspended 10 nurses for refusing to care for Covid-19 patients without the N95 masks the physicians got. The nurses later got the masks. And the New York Times ran an op-ed by Theresa Brown about how she was forced to quit a clinical job because of her advocacy for safer practices, a dynamic that is now widespread in the Covid context.
2,259 total views, 2 views today
We are not heroes
An April 2020 CBS News piece reported that National Nurses United had held a protest in front of the White House about the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). The union argues that the CDC has weakened its standards for PPE, that OSHA has likewise failed to act, and that Congress and the White House have not mandated the production of enough PPE or testing supplies.
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Don’t show up, don’t come out
In April 2020, U.S. nurses appeared in the media to tell the public why Covid-19 must be taken seriously and managed with social distancing measures. An anonymous California nurse did that forcefully in an installment of the Guardian’s “ER Diaries” series, explaining that Covid patients were pushing his hospital to the brink. And on PBS’s NewsHour a Miami nurse manager likewise pleaded for distancing, describing how challenging it is stay safe while providing critical care.
1,495 total views
Life during wartime
ICU nurse tells New York Times readers what it’s like to care for Covid-19 patients In a strong opinion piece, Simone Hannah-Clark took readers inside the day of a New York City ICU nurse….
102,339 total views, 2 views today